Isaiah 53:5: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.

Our Lady of Clonfert

On Ascension Sunday I took my mother over to visit Our Ladys Shrine at Clonfert, which is in Co. Galway not far from the town of Banagher. This small Church contains the statue of Our Lady of Clonfert. It is an unusual statue as you can see where one arm is missing. In the 16th century during times of religious suppression in Ireland, this statue was taken from its Monastic home and was hidden in woodland, inside the trunk of a tree for safekeeping.

It remained there forgotten for almost three hundred years, and then according to local legend, in the late 19th century a woodcutter was out looking for a piece of wood for his work when he came across the tree where the statue had been hidden and as he started chopping through the tree, he severed the trunk and noticed blood flowing out. He looked through the branches and there found the sacred statue of Our Lady. He had cut through the arm of the statue. The statue was carefully removed and placed in Meelick Church. But later she was returned to the Church in Clonfert, where today devotions take place especially in the month of May.

It was encouraging to see so many people of all ages coming and going to pray to Our Lady. So many candles were lit and the little Church is decorated beautifully and reverence is respected always for the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Excerpts of the Pope's Sermon on the Feast of the Sacred Heart 2010

The most important of those texts in today’s liturgy is Psalm 23(22) – “The Lord is my shepherd” – in which Israel at prayer received God’s self-revelation as shepherd, and made this the guide of its own life. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”: this first verse expresses joy and gratitude for the fact that God is present to and concerned for us. The reading from the Book of Ezechiel begins with the same theme: “I myself will look after and tend my sheep” (Ez 34:11). God personally looks after me, after us, after all mankind. I am not abandoned, adrift in the universe and in a society which leaves me ever more lost and bewildered. God looks after me. He is not a distant God, for whom my life is worthless.

Another part of this sermon

“Your rod and your staff – they comfort me”: the shepherd needs the rod as protection against savage beasts ready to pounce on the flock; against robbers looking for prey. Along with the rod there is the staff which gives support and helps to make difficult crossings. Both of these are likewise part of the Church’s ministry, of the priest’s ministry. The Church too must use the shepherd’s rod, the rod with which he protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray. The use of the rod can actually be a service of love. Today we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated. Nor does it have to do with love if heresy is allowed to spread and the faith twisted and chipped away, as if it were something that we ourselves had invented. As if it were no longer God’s gift, the precious pearl which we cannot let be taken from us. Even so, the rod must always become once again the shepherd’s staff – a staff which helps men and women to tread difficult paths and to follow the Lord.

From the Catechism..

The Holy Eucharist

1324 The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life."136 "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch."137

Quote

Our Lord Jesus to St. Faustina - My daughter, just as you prepare in My presence, so also you make your confession before Me. The person of the priest is, for Me, only a screen. Never analyse what sort of a priest it is that I am making use of; open your soul in confession as you would to Me, and I will fill it with My light. (1725)